Tables Turned
by elle127
Summary: Ed Lane has no idea what to expect when two teenagers come out of nowhere and kill a giant monster unil they show up at headquaters claiming Ed needs protection.
1. Chapter 1: Two Strange Teenage Samurai

**Elle**_**:**__ Hello, I wanted to write a Bleach/Flashpoint fic and now I was finally able to do it :). I couldn't figure out a proper title for the longest time and I can't take credit for it. "Tables Turned" belongs in full to SAR132-4. So here it is, enjoy :)_

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**Chapter One: Two Strange Teenage Samurai**

"Sierra one in position, I've got the solution," Ed Lane said focusing his sniper rifle on the subject. There was a man holding a small child at gunpoint and the child looked scared out of his mind. Ed had issues when it came to using lethal force to end a situation but he shoved them to the back of his mind for now. His full attention needed to be on the situation. One false move and the wrong person would be killed.

Over the airwave and through the headsets Ed could hear the team Sergeant Greg Parker try and negotiate with the subject and get him to release the child. It was all futile. Ed could feel it in his stomach. He prayed that he wouldn't have to use lethal force but the situation told otherwise.

"Sierra one, Sierra two do you copy?" Greg asked. Ed heard the other sniper, Sam Braddock answer first but a blood curdling scream had diverted Ed's attention from the situation.

"Sierra one do you copy?" Greg asked. Ed watched above him at the strangest thing he had ever seen. "Ed, answer me!"

"What the hell is that?" Ed muttered to himself. It was quiet enough so Greg couldn't hear it but Ed heard Greg give Sam authorization to use lethal force on the subject.

Ed meanwhile was still transfixed by the sight above him and deaf to his sergeant's call attempting to bring him back to earth.

There was a monster flying above Ed. He couldn't believe his eyes. Monsters did not exist. He was sure of it. He had confirmed it at least ten years ago by checking under his son Clark's bed, closet and wherever a six year old could imagine a beast to be lurking.

The thing above him was hideous. It looked like the demented offspring of a sea urchin and a platypus. It had a white mask covering where its head should have been. Ed had half a mind to shot at it but he didn't what it was or even if it was real.

To cap it all off Ed saw two teenagers running atop a parallel building. They weren't ordinary teenagers, they were wearing black samurai robes and were carrying swords and they seemed to see the monster as well. Ed wanted to call out to them to get some information but he didn't want to give into this strange hallucination. The one teenager, a male with spiky orange hair pulled a gigantic sword from his back and leapt off the building into the air. He seemed to be able to fly as he launched himself toward the monster and in one fell swoop cut the beast from head to toe.

The thing's crimson blood spattered everywhere and Ed watched as the second teenager, a female pulled out a cell phone and dialed something as the monster disintegrated into thin air. The girl finished on the phone and met up with the boy on the building just above where Ed was standing. He could hear their conversation but he couldn't understand any of it. They were speaking in and Asian sounding language, Japanese maybe? Ed wasn't aware he was staring at them until the boy with the orange hair looked down and caught Ed's eye.

"Oi," the boy said. "Can you see us?" He spoke without an accent like he spoke English and the other language perfectly.

"Who the hell are you?" Ed called he wanted answers and he didn't care that his entire team could hear his conversation with two strange teenage samurai and he ignored Greg when he asked who was on the roof with him.

The boy with the orange hair looked at the girl with black hair.

"Rukia," the boy said. "He can see us, shouldn't we erase his memory?"

"Ichigo," the girl, Rukia, said. "Let's go we need to find our gigai and get back to the house. He's not an issue in fact I think we'll be seeing him later."

With that the two teenagers headed back in the direction they came from leaving a very confused Ed behind to deal with the rest of his team who had come up to the roof to drag him down.

"Ed," Greg was in front of him now. Ed had no idea how long the sergeant had been there. "What the hell is going on and who the hell were you talking to?"

"I'd like to know that myself," Ed replied. He and Greg started to walk down the stairs and out of the building to where the rest of Ed's team sans Sam were waiting. He looked at their faces and he knew that his little conversation with the strange teenagers unnerved them. As they headed back to the SUVs Ed made to drive the one he drove in with but Greg stopped him.

"Take shotgun Eddy," Greg said. "I need to talk to you."

Ed sighed and obeyed Greg. He knew what was coming. Even if Ed didn't like having to use lethal force he never broke concentration. The fact that Ed was Sierra one and Sam had to be given the order rarely happened.

"What the hell happened Eddy?" Greg asked when they were on the road. Ed kept his eyes forward. Thoughts chased each other around his head. He could make up some story about the wind screwing with the airwave or something but it took skill to lie to Greg. Even as Ed thought about it his cover stories were total bullshit and the only thing he could think of was to tell Greg what really happened atop the building.

"Did you see that thing?" Ed asked.

"You mean the man about to kill the child Ed?" Greg asked annoyed. "Yeah I did."

"No, the monster, the one that looked like an anemone screwed a platypus?" Ed said. There was no way in hell that Greg would believe him. Ed might as well of said that Santa Clause was handing out presents.

"And there were these two teenagers," Ed continued, "a boy and a girl, Japanese or something. They were wearing samurai robes and the boy carried this giant sword that was as tall as he was and they killed the thing and then the boy asked if I could see them and said something about erasing my memory but the girl said leave it and I might be seeing them later."

By now Greg had pulled the SUV back into the SRU headquarters. They walked past Kira's desk to get to the briefing room when Ed spotted them. Signing papers were a group of teenagers and among them were the orange haired boy and the black haired girl. Ed stopped Greg as he past.

"That's them," Ed said in a hushed tone. "The kids from before."

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**Elle**_**:**__ so review please and let me know what you think._


	2. Chapter 2: Soul Reapers in the SRU?

**Elle:** _Ok, hopefully this chapter provides more information on the role of Soul Reapers_

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Chapter Two: Soul Reapers in the SRU

Greg Parker knew exactly where this was going and Ed's encounter with the strange teenage samurai suddenly made sense. Just the other night Greg had spoken to the other boy, the one with the white hair who looked much younger than the group around him.

_Greg was sitting on his couch with a diet Coke in his hand watching the news when there was a knock at the door. He checked his watch; it was ten o'clock at night. Who could possibly be bothering him at this hour? Getting up Greg answered the door. He didn't see anyone. Figuring it was the neighborhood kids pulling a ding-dong-ditch, Greg made to close the door when…_

"_Excuse me," Greg looked down at a four-foot something boy with spiky white hair and large teal eyes. Greg pulled the negotiation skills out from under the rug._

"_What are you doing here at this hour? Did you loose your parents?" Greg asked. The boy couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve years old._

"_You are Sergeant Gregory Parker no?" the boy asked. His voice was surprisingly deep for a twelve year old. Greg nodded not knowing what to expect. "I am Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya of the Soul Society's Thirteen Court Guard Companies. May I come in?"_

_Reluctantly Greg let Toshiro in and offered him a chair. He refused politely and asked Greg to sit down. Greg was still confused as to why a twelve year old was at his house at ten at night._

"_I am going to try something," Toshiro said. He pulled a Pez dispenser out of his pocket and swallowed a candy. In a flash of light there were two Toshiros. One was wearing the jeans and t-shirt he had come in with and the other was wearing black samurai robes with a white jacket and he had a sword on his back._

_Greg's eyes flashed toward the weapon on the boys back and his hand instantly went to his pocket to retrieve his blackberry. Team three was on call tonight._

"_You can see me," the Toshiro in samurai robes said. "There is no need to call anyone; I am not going to hurt you. I only need to talk to you; it concerns your subordinate Edward Lane."_

_The Toshiro in samurai robes grabbed the Toshiro in jeans and he became one Toshiro again. Greg was still recovering from the shock._

"_What about Ed?" Greg asked. The well being of his teammates came before his own. Toshiro looked around and started pacing._

"_Where to begin Mr. Parker," Toshiro said. "It is a long story and I have little time to tell it. I am a Shinigami, a death god or Soul Reaper and I live in a place called the Soul Society. It is our job as Soul Reapers to keep the balance between the living and the dead. Our main job is to help lingering souls pass from one world to the next."_

_**Like that woman on **__**Ghost Whisperer**__**,**__ Greg thought. He didn't say it out loud though. That was one of the rules of being a negotiator, never interrupt the subject. Toshiro continued on._

"_There are other souls called hollows and they are what happens if a good soul dwells in the world of the living too long. As Soul Reapers it is our job to eliminate hollows and send them where they need to go. Now much like your police force, the Soul Society is split into different units such as the Stealth Force, the Kido Corps and the Thirteen Court Guard Companies. As I said before I am Captain Hitsugaya and I am head of the Tenth Company."_

_He paused for a moment and Greg seized his chance to ask questions._

"_What does all this have to do with Ed?" he asked._

"_A while ago three of our captains betrayed the Soul Society and went into Hueco Mundo, Hollow World. Ed Lane possesses a large amount of spiritual energy and it is highly likely that Sosuke Aizen, one of the three traitors will come after him and try to get him into his army. That is the entire reason why I am here. I came to Toronto with a squad of Soul Reapers who are more than willing to protect Mr. Lane. Now then, with that being said I suggest you warn your team in advance, there are five of us and we will be acting as members of SRU team five and will be doing joint collaboration work with team one."_

_Toshiro made to leave but Greg stopped him._

"_How long do you guys think you'll be staying?" Greg asked. Toshiro sighed._

"_Days, weeks, months, years possibly, I really do not know," he said solemnly. "Good night Mr. Parker." And with that he left. Greg had a feeling tomorrow would be hell._

"Captain Hitsugaya," Greg greeted the young white haired boy by extending his hand for him to shake. Toshiro shook Greg's hand gingerly. Ed, still standing next to Greg looked utterly confused. As Toshiro led his team to the locker room Greg pulled Ed aside and explained the situation as best as he knew it. When he was finished Ed's face went through four different expressions before he settled on one of disbelief.

Still not wanting to believe everything Greg had told him Ed went to change in the locker room when he realized that the white haired boy Greg was talking to and the orange haired boy who had slain the monster were putting things into the unused lockers at the end of the room. Joining them were two others, a man with bright red hair pulled back into a ponytail and tribal tattoos where his eyebrows should have been and another man with short spiky black hair, three vertical scars running down the right side of his face and underneath his left eye was a small 69. Ed figured that the short girl that was with them, the same girl that had killed the hollow was in the women's locker room. Ed saw the other men casting the new guys strange looks. They didn't know who they were or what they were doing here.

Greg walked into the locker room and saw his team staring at Toshiro's team and in a hushed tone told them to meet in the briefing room after they had changed. He said that there was a reason the new guys were here and that Toshiro would explain everything.

-----

Greg sat at the head of the briefing table as usual and watched as his team filed around him taking their usual spots. Toshiro's team stood behind Greg waiting. There was something militaristic about them, the all stood in a straight line. Even Greg had to admit that they wore the cool pants well. Once Spike Scarlatti and Lewis Young took their spots Greg began his speech.

"Now, these six come from Japan and they are here to work with us," Greg said gesturing toward Toshiro's team. Toshiro had advised Greg not to tell Ed or the others what was really going on. Greg hated lying to his team but something about the small white haired captain's disposition told him to follow the request. Greg wasn't counting on Toshiro telling them the tale.

The young captain stepped forward and introduced himself.

"My name is _Captain_ Toshiro Hitsugaya," he put emphasis on the word 'captain'. "We come from the Soul Society, we are Soul Reapers and we are here to protect Ed Lane."

Team one looked at each other. Sam Braddock, the other sniper tired not to laugh and was earned a smack upside the head by Jules Callaghan, the only girl on team one.

"At least their taking it better that Ichigo did," the only girl on Toshiro's team said. "In case you haven't noticed the table is still on the ground." There was a vein throbbing in Toshiro's temple.

"Just don't show them the drawings," the boy with orange hair said quietly to the man with the red hair.

"Can we get back on subject you two?" the man with the black hair snapped and the others. They shut up instantly. Toshiro was continuing his explanation this time the girl accompanied him with drawings of stick figures and rabbits.

"Now then," Toshiro said wrapping up his little presentation. "We should introduce ourselves."

"My name is Rukia Kuchiki," the girl with the black hair said. "Thirteenth Company"

"Lieutenant Renji Abarai," the man with the red hair and crazy tattoos said. "Company six"

"Lieutenant Shuhei Hisagi," the man with the black hair said. "Ninth Company"

"Ichigo Kurosaki," the last boy said, he had orange hair. "Substitute Soul Reaper"

"Greg Parker," Greg said he shook hands with the Soul Reapers. "This is my team."

"Ed Lane," Ed said.

"Mike Scarlatti," said Spike. "But everyone calls me 'Spike'"

"Lewis Young," said Lou

"Sam Braddock," said Sam. A slight flush crept into Rukia's cheeks when she shook hands with Sam.

"Jules Callaghan," Jules said shaking hands with the team.

"Kevin Wordsworth," said Wordy at last. "Everyone calls me 'Wordy' though"

"Well then," said Ed casting an eye at the five Soul Reapers. "You guys call yourselves my body guards; let's see what you can do."

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**Elle:** _review please :)_


	3. Chapter 3: Learning the Ropes

**Elle:** _this chapter describes the Bleach characters a little better. I was able to connect each Bleach character to a Flashpoint character. And I did base negotiation simulation off of Sam's in "The Element of Surprise". Ichigo's reaction would have been almost exactly the same._

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Chapter Three: Learning the Ropes

~The Shooting Range~

"This," Sam said proudly like a father showing of his newborn, holding up the rifle for all to see. "Is a Remmington 700. It fires .204 lugers and it's long range and precise. Have any of you ever fired a rifle before?"

Sam's military manner was apparent in the way he addressed the Soul Reaper team. Toshiro sat on the bench outside the stock room with a grumpy expression. He didn't particularly care for modern weaponry. The rest of the team was another story.

"No," Toshiro said flatly answering for all of his team. They shook their heads agreeing with Toshiro. Sam sighed, he didn't exactly have patients and thankfully Jules came to his rescue.

"Then we'll just have to go down to the range and teach them," she said packing up several rifles in their cases. She grabbed a few rounds and stowed them in the carry bag's pockets. She shoved one of the bags into Sam's chest and took off. "Follow me guys."

Renji and Shuhei were among the first to get off their seats and follow Jules. Apart from Rukia she was the only girl around. Ed watched as Sam grabbed the other bags and followed Jules to the range. Ed lagged behind to watch.

Within minutes Ed and Jules had the range all set up for safety and each soul reaper was equipped with goggles and earmuffs. After Sam, Jules and Ed showed proper loading and firing techniques they gave the order to fire.

Ten rounds later only Rukia and Shuhei had managed to hit the paper. Shuhei's paper consisted of ten bullet holes scattered randomly across the paper. Rukia however fired ten rounds leaving one hole. Sam Jules and Ed were impressed.

Renji and Ichigo were the total opposite. While Toshiro had managed to at least make contact wit the target, Ichigo and Renji's lay completely unscathed.

Jules suggested Rukia move onto moving targets and she equipped the young soul reaper with a handgun and sent her into the three dimensional shooting range.

"Ten targets, ten rounds you don't get to miss," Jules said handing Rukia a pair of night vision goggles before sealing her into the room. Jules went up to the control room where Sam and Ed were waiting. She sat down at the computer and pressed a few buttons.

"All right Kuchiki," Sam said as Rukia began to move stealthily down the hall. "Let's see what you can do."

Jules let a target drop behind Rukia and she turned sharply and shot at it. She hit it perfectly. Ed nodded. By then Spike Wordy and Lou along with Toshiro, Ichigo and Renji had crowed themselves into the tiny control room to watch.

Jules let six more targets drop in various locations and both teams watched as Rukia shot at all of them. Spike suggested that they shut the lights off. Even in the dark Rukia cleared the next three targets. Ten rounds, ten targets no missing.

"Is that it?" Rukia asked when the lights came back on. She joined the team back in the control room as Jules fixed the settings and locked Shuhei inside the range. Ten minutes later he came out after hitting all ten targets. Ed was dually impressed with both of them. Now only Ichigo Renji and Toshiro had to make their mark.

----

"Help us please!" Jules called. She was being held 'hostage' by Ed. Spike was on the ground next to her being held 'hostage' by Lou. Ichigo, wearing the cool pants was trying to talk both Ed and Lou into putting the guns down. Needless to say it wasn't going so well.

"Alright look," Ichigo said as calmly as he could. "Just put the gun down."

"Connect with the subject," Greg reminded Ichigo. Ichigo grumbled and tried to negotiate again.

"Look, why are you holding these people hostage in the first place?" Ichigo asked. He could sense Greg wanted to smack him over the head with the binder just about now. Ichigo wasn't exactly a people person and usually went on an attack first ask questions later policy. Trying to connect with a subject about to kill a hostage was about as easy as nailing jello to a tree. But Ichigo wasn't one to give up either.

"We really want you to negotiate your way out of this," Jules called to Ichigo. "Hint, hint"

"He took my money," Ed said jamming the unloaded gun deeper into Jules's temple.

"We're trying to get you that money," Ichigo said thinking that was the only logical thing to say. "If you put the guns down we can arrange something."

"What about my crack?" Lou butted in. "You gonna get me my crack too right?" The question took Ichigo for a loop.

"Hell no, I'm not giving you drugs you dumbass!" Ichigo yelled. Greg was five seconds away from hitting the boy over the head with the binder. Thankfully Rukia did it for him.

"Bang, bang," Ed said pretending to fire the gun twice. "Congratulations, you killed the hostage. Let's try this again, Abarai you're next."

Renji stepped where Ichigo had just been standing. Ed, Jules, Spike and Lou resumed their positions.

"Just talk them down," Greg instructed.

"Hello, there," Renji started with the basic introduction. "I'm Renji you mind telling us what's going on here?"

"She took my money," Ed snarled once again jamming the weapon into Jules's temple.

"How much money are we talking?" Renji said. So far he was sailing smoother than Ichigo had.

"A lot of money!" Lou butted in.

"Ok then," Renji was starting to get lost but he kept pushing through. If Lou made the comment about crack again then Renji figured he'd go the same way as Ichigo. And sure enough when Lou made the same comment Renji faltered and Greg was ready to hit himself with the binder.

Once again, Ed, Jules, Lou and Spike held their positions and this time Toshiro was to talk them down.

"My name is Toshiro," Toshiro said not taking his eyes off Ed or Lou. Greg made a comment in his book that that was something neither Renji nor Ichigo did. "I want to help you, but I can't do that while you have a gun pointed at this nice lady's head."

"A lot of money's at stake here boy," Ed spat. "She'll die if I don't get it."

"We're gonna try and work on it," Toshiro said holding out his hand keeping Ed at bay. "Why don't you put the gun down and tell me what exactly what's going on, if I have a better idea then maybe I might be able to help you better."

"I'm gonna get my crack right?" Lou threw in. This was where both Renji and Ichigo had faltered in their negotiation. But Toshiro handled it flawlessly.

"We'll try and work with that as well," Toshiro said. Brushing it aside he turned his attention back to Ed. "If you tell me why exactly we're all here, we can work out a solution and go home."

Slowly Ed began to tell the back story and broke down, putting the weapon down and letting the hostages go. Greg scribbled a note on Toshiro's form.

-----

Ichigo was putting his stuff away in his locker looking crestfallen. He was used to getting slapped in the face by Rukia but somehow today hurt more than usual. He was used to her showing him up with finesse but something about how both Rukia and Shuhei were at the top of the pack and Toshiro was able to negotiate was pissing him off. At lease he had Renji at the bottom with him and that wasn't so bad.

Renji and Shuhei were discussing sports with Ed and Spike while Toshiro was talking to Greg about his performance when talking Ed and Lou down. He closed his locker and saw Sam coming over. Ichigo really didn't feel like talking to anyone.

"Look," Sam said blatantly. "If you're pissed off about not being able to negotiate don't take it too hard."

Ichigo threw his bag over his shoulder and walked off out of the locker room. Sam followed. After seeing Ichigo's performance today Sam knew all too painfully well how the young soul reaper felt.

"Ok, I said almost the exact same thing you said when I first started out," Sam said finally catching up to Ichigo. Still Ichigo said nothing. "It gets easier, trust me."

"I'm fine really," Ichigo said trying to get out the door. Sam wasn't going to let up.

"Do you want to get a drink or something?" he asked.

"I don't drink," Ichigo said curtly. This time Sam didn't object as Ichigo pushed past him and out the door. Sam himself had difficulty connecting to people.

"Sometimes it's easier to connect to those we don't know then those we do," Greg said appearing out of nowhere and uttering a profound piece of Greg-wisdom.

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**Elle:** _so review and let me know what you guys think_


	4. Chapter 4: A Soul Reaper's Arsenal

**Chapter Four: A Soul Reaper's Arsenal**

Ichigo stood in the deserted dojo. Toshiro had reserved it for their stay and today was the Soul Reapers day to show the SRU their own special moves.

Ichigo scratched the back of his head and looked around when Rukia appeared out of nowhere.

"On your feet Ichigo," she snapped pulling on a red fingerless glove and shoving Ichigo hard in the chest. At once two Ichigos appeared. One was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and lay motionless on the ground and the other was wearing the black samurai robes. Rukia herself was wearing the same thing. She had picked up on Ichigo's disheartened mood ever since they left the SRU headquarters. Toshiro had asked Rukia to get Ichigo out of his depression and with the help of Renji Rukia agreed willingly.

Now with Ichigo in his Soul Reaper form Rukia slapped him across the face hard. Ichigo recoiled and rubbed his cheek which was now an angry red.

"What the hell was that for?" Ichigo snapped. Rukia gave him a cold glare. Renji also in Soul Reaper form was standing behind Rukia with his sword slung lazily across his shoulder.

"I don't think you slapped him hard enough Rukia," Renji said sliding his sword out of his sheath. "Let me give it a go."

"That won't be necessary," Rukia said quietly. Ichigo just stared at her blankly. "Look, there's a reason why the SRU is a team, Greg can negotiate but he can't dismantle bombs the way Spike can, Sam can shoot but he doesn't have the emotional intuition that Jules has, Wordy's the hand-to-hand master but he doesn't know as much about gangs as Lou does. Just because you can't shoot and you can't negotiate doesn't mean either of you can't be an asset to the team."

Rukia smiled as her message seemed to get across to Ichigo. Renji slinked back Rukia's little speech was indented for him as well.

"Hey there guys," Spike walked into the dojo Toshiro had reserved. He was followed by the remainder of team one. They were all wearing street clothes. Toshiro and Shuhei appeared out of the changing rooms. They were both in soul reaper uniforms but they were still in their gigai. Shuhei was holding a freshly laundered pile of robes in his arms.

"Hey," Renji said walking over the edge of the hardwood floor. A half wall separated the waiting room from the dojo. He leaned against it. "Take your shoes off and put them in there."

There was a shoe rack on the other side of the half wall. Team one did what they were told as Ichigo got back into his body. Rukia pulled a uniform from Shuhei's pile and jammed it into his chest.

"Go change," she barked. It had taken Ichigo a few minutes to realize that even though Rukia, Renji, Shuhei and Toshiro looked like their Soul Reaper selves they were really in gigai wearing the uniform. Grumbling Ichigo went to change.

Smirking Renji and Shuhei handed out the uniforms to the SRU. Sam held his up and let it unfold. He took one look at it before crumpling it back into a pile.

"I'm not wearing a dress," he said flatly.

"It's not a dress," Shuhei said. "It's called a hakama, they're really baggy pants."

"It looks like a skirt," Sam argued. "I'm not wearing a man skirt."

"It's not a man skirt," Rukia chided. "It's a man kimono get it right. Sam, my brother wears one and he's one of the most influential men in the Soul Society. I will call him if you don't get your ass into it."

The threat registered on both Renji and Shuhei's faces but Sam had no idea who Rukia's brother was. Her words were completely empty on the SRU rookie. Finally Greg spoke up and Sam agreed to wear the hakama grudgingly.

When Team one emerged from the changing rooms they looked completely different. The Kimono and Hakamas weren't as bulky as the Kevlar vests and cool pants. Each person's figure was more accentuated. You could tell that Wordy was slightly wiry or that Jules had a soft figure easily. Sam caught Renji staring at Jules longer than he should have.

Toshiro knelt at the front of the room waiting for everyone to get settled. Rukia, Ichigo, Renji and Shuhei knelt on either side of Toshiro, while everyone else knelt along the opposite wall.

"Yesterday," Toshiro began. "You were kind enough to show us your arsenal. Today it is only fair we exchange the favor."

Toshiro reached behind him and drew a weapon. It was a samurai sword, long silver and it glimmered in the light. Its hilt was teal and wrapped in brown tape and it's cross guard was a four pointed sword. Wordy, who was big on martial arts, looked at with wide eyes. Slowly Rukia laid her sword out in front of her as well. Hers was smaller and plainer looking that Toshiro's and the cross guard was rounded. Shuhei and Renji laid their weapons out as well. Renji's sheath was red and his cross guard was rectangular. Shuhei's was black and octagonal. Ichigo didn't have his sword. It was too big. Instead he laid a wooden boken in front of him.

"Soul Reapers have four basic methods of combat," Toshiro explained, "Zan, Ki, Ha and Ho.

"Zan is Zanjutsu are sword arts, the act of controlling the zanpaku-to and being able to release it in first and second stages, shikai and bankai. Ki is Kido, manifesting one's reiatsu, spirit energy in the form of spells, whether is be a bakudo, a binding spell or a Hado, a destructive spell. Ha is hakuda, hand-to-hand combat. I doubt you need further explanation. Finally Ho, Hoho, fast movements using reiatsu most commonly referred to as _shunpo, _or Flashstep. Those are the basics of Soul Reaper combat. We can teach you Zanjutsu and Hakuda but that's about it. Shunpo and Kido require years of training and being about to control reiatsu. Take a boken and let's get started."

The five soul reapers stood up and attached their swords at their hips. Rukia handed each member of team on a boken and lined them up in pairs to practice based on height. Jules partnered with Rukia since they were about the same size.

"Hold the sword firmly," Toshiro instructed. He and Shuhei went around and corrected grips.

"Pretend you're holding a hockey stick and flip it up," Shuhei said explaining what Toshiro said. Upon talking to Ed he learned that the lead sniper liked sports, once he made the reference both Spike and Ed shifted their grips.

"Like that?" Jules asked Rukia. Her hands were too close together. Rukia told her so. Toshiro was still walking around. Once everyone's grip was corrected he went back to the front to deliver more instructions.

"Hold the boken away from you at an angle, the tip should be facing your partner," they did so. "Make sure there is enough space between you, bring the boken slightly above your head and swing down, _making sure you stop before you hit the floor_!"

Thud, Spike's boken hit the ground. Everyone else did so perfectly.

"Congratulations," Toshiro said. "You now know how to attack; it is the basic motion for attacking from all directions.

"Let's move onto blocking next," Toshiro said. "When you block you always hold your weapon perpendicular to your opponent's. Abarai and Hisagi will demonstrate."

Shuhei and Renji faced each other. Shuhei swung his sword down and Renji swung his over his head and perpendicular to Shuhei's. There was a dull clack as wood hit wood."

After practicing the sweeping motion a few times, Toshiro gave the instruction to take turns attacking and blocking.

_Clack, clack, clack_, Ed attacked Sam blocked, Wordy attacked and Greg blocked, Spike attacked and Lou blocked_; clack, clack, clack_, and vise-versa.

_Clack, clack, clack,_ Jules and Rukia had a rhythm. They were moving at a faster pace than the men, most likely because Rukia knew what she was doing and Jules was a quick learner. Jules was attacking from all sides and Rukia was blocking. The men watched in amazement for a few minutes before Toshiro spoke up.

"Ladies," he barked. Both Rukia and Jules lowered their weapons, Toshiro looked upset.

"Gomennasai taichou," Rukia panted bowing slightly.

"Very well," said Toshiro, "let's continue then."


	5. Chapter 5: Where Did Ed Go?

**Elle:** _I'm having major writer's block issues with this story, I have the next few chapters written but I don't know where to go from there, if anybody has any ideas either PM me or submit them in a review. credit will be given :)_

* * *

Chapter five

Team one was sitting at a bar somewhere in Toronto. Shuhei, who looked the oldest, accompanied the team as Ed's personal bodyguard; Toshiro would be staying at Ed's place. As they passed around the beers conversation turned to what Shuhei could tell about the Soul Reapers.

"So why was Kurosaki so pissed off the other day?" Sam asked passing Shuhei a bottle. He took a sip and pondered his answer; he really didn't know Kurosaki that well in fact, Shuhei had come on this mission to help Renji out. But of the things he did know, Kurosaki was a lot like Renji in the fact that they both hated sucking at something. Yesterday both at the range and during negotiation simulation neither of them did brilliant.

"He's not used to failing at something would be my best guess," Shuhei said setting the bottle down on the table. He wasn't a big beer drinker but the Canadian bar didn't serve sake, Japanese rice wine which he preferred.

"So how did the team get chosen?" Ed asked changing the subject. If Shuhei didn't know about Ichigo's problems it was rude to press him for information. Ed made a mental note to talk to Ichigo tomorrow.

"Hitsugaya's usually in charge of Aizen related work," Shuhei said bitterly as if the subject matter was personal to him. "Kurosaki's usually forced into missions in the world of the living, I think the head captain fails to realize how big this place really is. Kuchiki works well with Kurosaki and Abarai works well with Kuchiki and I work well with Abarai. That's it really."

"Explain the whole hollow concept again," Spike said. "I didn't get Toshiro's explanation and Rukia's drawings didn't really help either." Shuhei sighed this was a long and tedious explanation. He started to explain when his cell phone started buzzing in his jeans pocket. Signaling for Spike to wait he pulled it out.

The GPS system flashed on the screen signaling that there was a hollow in the vicinity. It left Shuhei between a rock and a hard place, on one hand he could go dispose of it but then that left Ed exposed or he could wait for someone else to kill it but that usually didn't work.

"Shuhei, is something wrong?" Greg asked. Shuhei snapped the phone shut.

"There's a hollow in the vicinity, I can't exactly take care of it because I'm the only one here and I have no idea where the hell Kurosaki, Abarai or the others are.

"Go take care of it," Ed said. "You said it should only take you five minutes. I'm gonna go to the bathroom and by the time I come back you'll be back."

Shuhei looked apprehensive but nevertheless ducked under the table and emerged in his soul reaper form. Surprisingly the entire SRU could see him. He shook it off and went outside.

It wasn't a big hollow but it was still ugly. This one looked like the demented offspring of a cow and a giraffe and its mask looked like a bull's head. As a lieutenant Shuhei used one swipe of his sword and cut the hollow from top to bottom with little difficulty. He sheathed his sword just as Toshiro, Renji, Rukia and Ichigo arrived on the scene.

"Hisagi," Toshiro barked. "Why are you not covering Lane?"

A thousand and one comments built up behind his teeth but Shuhei knew better than to snap back to a captain.

"He's a forty year old SRU sniper not a child captain," Shuhei said calmly. "He can handle himself for five minutes."

"Knowing our luck the five minutes we leave him alone something happens," Renji said looking around as if to see if anything else was coming.

Shuhei went back inside the bar followed by Renji and got back into his body. He counted the SRU members at the table. There were six, Ed was missing.

"Ed's not back yet?" Shuhei asked slightly alarmed. His eyes went over to the bathroom hoping that Ed would open the door and come back over. After a few minutes he didn't.

"Should somebody go and check on him?" he asked when five minutes had passed. If Shuhei had been gone ten minutes and five minutes had past that meant that Ed had been in the restroom fifteen minutes. Shuhei cast a side glance at Renji. Reluctantly Renji went over to the men's room and knocked on the door. There was no answer, seeing this Shuhei came over.

"Ed," he said banging on the door. "Are you in there?"

There was still no answer and by now Greg and Wordy had come over.

"Something's not right," Shuhei said banging on the door again. "He's been in there fifteen more than fifteen minutes and he's not answering."

"Let me try," Wordy offered. He pounded on the door a few times. "Hey Ed, you have a little too much there? You ok in there buddy?"

"I can't sense his spiritual pressure on the other side," Renji said. Shuhei blanched. If the spiritual pressure wasn't there that only meant two things: either Ed wasn't in there or he was dead.

"I'm breaking down the door," Greg said advising his team to back up. They did as they were told. They were causing quite a commotion over by the men's room and some of the bartenders had come over to see what was going on.

"On my signal," Greg said. "Three two, one"

Wordy slammed into the door with his shoulder and it swung open. Greg Wordy, Renji and Shuhei used their SRU training and went inside with caution.

"Ed," they called at the same time. "Ed, are you in here?"

There was no answer. Wordy checked all the stalls. Renji looked at Shuhei. It was clear and obvious that if Shuhei hadn't gone off to kill the hollow Ed wouldn't be missing right now. To make matters worse Toshiro was standing on the window ledge in soul reaper form and he was holding a piece of paper.

"You might want to read this," he said darkly handing Shuhei the paper. On it was a note scribbled in Japanese. Shuhei read it quickly his stomach dropping with each line. Renji read over his shoulder. He put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

"What is it?" Greg demanded. "What's going on?"

"I failed," Shuhei said punching the wall. "What I came here to do I fucked up completely."

"What…?"

"Aizen's got Ed"

~*~*~*~

One minute Ed had been washing his hands after using the bathroom and the next there was a strange…thing…in there with him. Ed guessed that it was something like a soul reaper because it wore samurai robes. But its robes were white; Toshiro and the other's robes were black. The strange thing was also wearing part of a hollow mask on its head, like a bull's horn. Its skin was a pasty white and it was wearing _eyeliner_? Ed had to do a double take to make sure he was seeing things correctly.

"You are Ed Lane no?" It spoke too, taking Ed completely by surprise. Outside he could hear banging on the door. Somebody knew he was in there.

"I'm Ed Lane," Ed said. The situation didn't make him feel any better. He was unarmed and unprotected going up against an unknown enemy. Ed hoped he could talk his way out of this.

"My name is Ulquiorra Schiffer," the thing said. The only thing that gave indication to gender was its voice; it had a deep masculine voice. Ed assumed it was male. "Lord Aizen wishes to have a conversation with you."

Ed racked his brains. Aizen was the same guy that Toshiro and the others had been hired to protect Ed against. Going with this thing would put them all in a bad situation. He didn't get a chance to say anything however because everything went black. Ulquiorra had knocked him out.

After Ulquiorra left the building leaving a taunting note to the soul reapers Shuhei, Wordy, Renji and Greg burst into the men's room. Toshiro stood in the window frame, realizing what had happened. As the other's searched top and bottom for Ed the small captain read the taunting note left by Ulquiorra and handed to Shuhei.

Ten minutes later team one and the soul reapers found themselves in the briefing room at the station with Greg fuming at the head of the table.

"Where the hell did they take Ed?" He asked. Toshiro didn't know how to answer the question without twisting the knife deeper into the wound. Rukia and Ichigo looked at each other. Renji and Shuhei had gone back to the Soul Society to report the incident to the head captain. Chances were that Shuhei wouldn't come back since it was his fault Ed had been kidnapped by Aizen.

"What can we do to bring him back?" Spike asked jerking Toshiro from his thoughts. He went to say something but it was Rukia who answered.

"Short of full-scale invasion of Hueco Mundo there's really nothing we can do," she said solemnly. Ichigo looked up.

"Why can't we just go invade Hueco Mundo?" he asked as if it were the obvious answer. Spike seemed to be thinking along the same lines. Rukia sighed at Ichigo's thick headedness.

There was a buzzing sound coming from Rukia's pocket. She reached in and pulled out her Soul pager which was vibrating. She flipped it open; she had a text message.

"Who is it?" Greg asked. Rukia snapped the phone shut.

"That was Renji," she explained. "Head Captain Yamamoto doesn't want to do anything about the Ed situation just yet. He feels we should wait until we get more information."

"So he's basically going to ignore Ed?" Greg asked. His fuse was shorter than usual and one more piece of bad new looked like it could result in something terrible.

"I still don't see why we shouldn't take Ichigo up on his idea and invade Wekko Mundo," Spike said. Out of everyone he seemed to be very optimistic about invading unknown territory and getting Ed back. Toshiro sighed this time.

"Hueco Mundo is a giant desert," Toshiro explained. Instantly all eyes went to Sam. He had been in the military and stationed in Kandahar before joining the SRU.

"We got Sam," Spike said. "He knows desert combat."

"Arrancars, hollows and whatever else Aizen has in his army cannot be killed by your Remmington 700's and flash-bangs or whatever else you have," Rukia said. "They can only be killed by zanpaku-to and most of the army is stronger than the Soul Reaper captains"

"Then we make bullets that can kill hollows and invade Hueco Mundo," Ichigo said. It appeared that Ichigo and Spike had joined forces and were going to Hueco Mundo with or without everyone else. Greg cleared his throat.

"I think Rukia and Toshiro have made it very clear that an invasion would not be wise at this point," he said. "I think it's best we oblige in the head captain's orders and stay put."


	6. Chapter 6: Soul Candy Alter Egos

Chapter six: Soul Candy

Aizen followed Ulquiorra to one of the holding cells in his palace in the middle of Hueco Mundo. The bald human was still sleeping in the cot. Aizen smirked. The man was oozing reiatsu. So much that if he borrowed a little it wouldn't matter much.

"You've done well Ulquiorra," Aizen told his Espada as if he were a first grader who had completed a macaroni sculpture. Ulquiorra bowed deeply to show his gratitude.

"He was guarded my Lord," Ulquiorra informed Aizen. This was the only unsettling thing left around the kidnapping of Ed Lane. Despite that he had been alone at the wrong time Ed Lane was too heavily guarded for his abrupt departure would not go unnoticed. Ulquiorra half expected the orange haired brat and his friends to come bursting through the door at any minute.

"You seemed troubled," Aizen said almost lovingly.

"The orange haired soul reaper and his friends are most certainly going to come after him," Ulquiorra said motioning toward Ed.

"Grimmjow would love a chance to get back at him," Aizen said with a sly smile crossing his face. "Take Petar as well I'm sure he'd love a chance to go back to the World of the Living."

~*~*~*~*~

Rukia held up a silver bullet in the light. It glittered ominously. Sam and Jules stared at it. It wasn't much different than the ammo they were used to; it was just a different color. There were boxes of these silver bullets that had arrived to the SRU headquarters today via the Soul Society's mail system. After a written request to her brother, Byakuya, Rukia received several boxes of the bullets made out of the same material as a zanpaku-to meaning they could slay hollows and in their case arrancars.

"It really doesn't look that different," Sam said. They weighed the same as the .204's but Sam had a hard time believing that if this one was shot at him it would have the same effect as a paintball gun.

"Special Order from R and D," Rukia said sliding the bullet back into the box with the others. She marked the boxes with a kanji symbol and explained to Sam and Jules that it meant 'sword'. She would stow them in her locker until they needed them. Yamamoto hadn't given anymore information about going to Hueco Mundo to rescue Ed but Toshiro was just about willing to break orders and go anyway.

Ichigo was fighting Renji in the weight room while Wordy watched trying to pick up tips. Renji and Shuhei had returned from the soul society. Shuhei had wanted to stay back but his new captain, a woman of blunt and forceful personality, had forced him back to help out.

They had brought with them an arsenal of explosives from the Soul Society and Spike was neglecting the instruction manual and was outside testing them out. Toshiro was inside the briefing room with Greg and the two of them were pouring over past records of arrancar attacks and previous failed attempts to invade Hueco Mundo.

"There's no way we can persuade these guys to give us Ed back?" Greg had asked Toshiro this several times and the answer was always the same, Toshiro would nod his head grimly and they would continue to read the records. Toshiro's Soul Pager began to ring.

"Captain Hitsugaya," it was Rukia's voice. "Did you feel the sudden change in reiatsu?"

Toshiro studied hard. There was a definite increase in a heavy and dark spiritual pressure somewhere to the east. HE knew it at once and realized that this was a bad sign.

"Find Abarai and Kurosaki, and I'll find Hisagi," Toshiro told Rukia. "If there's only one then we can handle it, if there's more than three then we need to call backup."

"Copy that," Rukia said before she hung up. Toshiro turned to Greg.

"There's been a surge of Reiatsu over by city hall," he explained. "We think it's an arrancar and a fully developed one. If that is true it needs to be disposed of but that also means we leave you unprotected and we know what happened last time."

Greg nodded as Toshiro pulled out his Pez dispenser and popped on of the candies. The strange sight of Toshiro leaving his body and becoming a Soul Reaper Toshiro and an SRU Toshiro occurred and Soul Reaper Toshiro left SRU Toshiro's body with Greg. Greg expected the SRU Toshiro to be still and lifeless however…

Toshiro jumped under the table.

"There are bad people everywhere," he said to Greg's utter confusion. "Must hide somewhere safe."

"Can I help you?" Greg asked peering under the table as SRU Toshiro curled into a ball and looked around.

"This spot has a 93 percent chance of being safe," SRU Toshiro said. Greg sighed and continued to pour over the records. He had a feeling that Toshiro wasn't the only one who would be acting strange.

----

"Come here cutie!" Ichigo launched himself at Jules only to be punched in the face by her. Ichigo jumped up again and went in for another attack only to be punched and pinned down by Sam.

"What the hell's your problem?" Sam barked. Ichigo recoiled.

"She may not be as luscious as the beautiful Rangiku but she's still gorgeous!" Ichigo said in a higher pitched voice than usual. Sam and Jules looked at each other. They had been at the range with Rukia examining the bullets that had just come in from the Soul Society when she had suddenly gone stiff. Jules thought she was about to have a seizure but then she pulled out her Soul Pager and started talking to Toshiro. When she hung up she left in a hurry and that's when Ichigo rushed in and tried to grope Jules. Needless to say Sam was annoyed.

Upon further investigation Ichigo didn't seem to be acting like himself. He was always very polite to all the guys and was respectful of Jules especially. Now he was acting shamelessly. Something weird was happening.

"Hey Sarge," Sam said. He was still pinning Ichigo to the ground after his second attack on Jules. "I think something's up with these guys. Is it full moon or something?"

Greg walked into the shooting range with Toshiro riding on his back piggy back style. Jules tried very hard not to laugh.

"Why is Toshiro on your back?" she asked.

"This spot as a 72 percent chance of being safe," Toshiro said casting a weary eye around. Greg looked at Sam and Jules.

"Meet me in the briefing room in ten," Greg told Sam and Jules. "And make sure we find these guys before they wreak havoc on the station."

Ten minutes later Team one and Toshiro's soul reaper team were in the briefing room. Not to say that it wasn't a challenge bringing in the soul reapers. Ever since Rukia had called Toshiro they seemed to be acting strange.

Rukia kept saying 'hop' repeatedly and couldn't sit still for more than thirty seconds.

Toshiro had resumed hiding under the table and kept muttering things about bad people and staying hidden. Every once and a while he would spit out a random percentage about how safe he was and if he wasn't thrilled with it climbed out from under the table to hide behind Greg.

Ichigo launched himself at Kira as they made they're to the briefing room. After much apologizes Sam and managed to drag the boy into the briefing room. It was only on Greg's orders that he wasn't duct taped down to his chair.

Renji had a smug look on his face and spent a great deal of time planning a master prank on Spike. He kept saying 'meow' whenever he spoke.

Shuhei was probably the most normal of all except he looked stoned. That would be a hell of an explanation to anyone that walked in.

"So does anyone know what the hell is going on with these guys?" Greg asked.

"Miss Rukia and the others went off to fight arrancars," Rukia said.

"Ok," said Greg carefully. "But what about you guys?"

"We're gikongan hop," Rukia's body said. "We temporarily inhabit a gigai when our masters have to do soul reaper work hop."

Judging by the look of all of the SRU's faces they had absolutely no idea what was going on. Ichigo (or at least the gikongan in his body) provided a better explanation.

"When a soul reaper needs to do work outside of the gigai," he explained in an annoyingly high pitched voice "they use one of us to make the gigai alive and not attract too much attention. My name is Kon," and he promptly launched himself at Jules again. "Like I said before you're not as pretty as Rangiku Matsumoto but around all these sweaty guys I guess you'll have to do."

Sam grabbed Kon and forced him back into his seat.


	7. Chapter 7: Arrancar Attack

Chapter Seven

"How many arrancars are we looking at?" Renji asked Toshiro. The five of them were heading north from the station to city hall where Rukia had felt the shift in pressure. At first it had only felt like one but as they got closer it became heavier darker and more spread out. This worried Toshiro because if there were more than five arrancars they needed to call in backup from the Soul Society.

"One maybe two," Rukia was the first one to answer. She had her Soul Pager out and was tracking the arrancars movement with the GPS system built inside it.

The team rounded a corner to where the clock tower was positioned and took the first glances at their opponents. There were three arrancars two of which had been encountered before the other was new.

"Three Vasto Lordes," Toshiro said in a hushed whisper. Even if he was a captain he couldn't suppress the hint of terror in his voice. Arrancars came in three types, Gillian foot soldiers that could be taken out easily by seated officers; Adjuchas the next level up were a bit problematical but were usually defeated by a lieutenant or higher without too much difficulty. The last class was the Vasto Lordes, the worst of the worst and they were stronger than a captain-class soul reaper, these were what Toshiro and his team were facing.

Toshiro looked at his men and Rukia and did some quick calculations. Ichigo, Renji and himself were the most adept fighters and they all had a bankai, the highest level of power a Soul Reaper could utilize for battle. Rukia was strong but she only had a shikai. Had she had brought a Remmington and the new bullets from R&D things might have been a little different. Shuhei was a lieutenant and had only a shikai above all his personality was much like Ed's and he didn't want to go lethal if he didn't have to.

"We're up against Ulquiorra, Grimmjow and someone new," Toshiro said. "Rukia and Shuhei I want back, Ichigo and Renji you two take Ulquiorra and Grimmjow, I'll take the new guy."

"Captain," Renji said a bit apprehensively. "Last time we fought arrancars in Karakura Town it took full force merely to drive them back. You sure you want to head in at twenty percent power?"

"Our question is what they are up to," Toshiro said. "If we plunge recklessly into a battle we will never know."

----

"I sense movement," Grimmjow said. He was an arrancar with blue hair and the mask over his lower left jaw. He was a complete asshole with no regard to anything but himself.

"Aizen said I could kill Ed Lane," the third arrancar said in an Eastern European accent. "It's been over a day and I have not even seen him."

The third arrancar and Grimmjow began bickering and it was beginning to give Ulquiorra a headache. He listened to them without really paying attention before he turned his attention to the figures behind the clock tower.

"Captain Toshiro Hitsugaya," Ulquiorra muttered to himself. "Lieutenants Renji Abarai and Shuhei Hisagi, Officer Rukia Kuchiki and Substitute Soul Reaper Ichigo Kurosaki, I would have thought they would have rolled out a stronger welcoming committee."

This small statement made Grimmjow and the third arrancar stop bickering.

"I wanna fight berry head," Grimmjow said bluntly. He took off and left the hiding place only to storm to clock tower. There was a clash of spiritual pressure and Ulquiorra knew that his cohort had recklessly plunged into battle.

"Petar," Ulquiorra said. "Go into battle as well fight whoever comes at you. If you can kill the captain Lord Aizen may let you kill Ed Lane."

It was a downright lie but it did the job. The third arrancar named Petar took off in Grimmjow's tracks. With another clash of spiritual pressure, Ulquiorra knew that Petar had begun to battle with a soul reaper. Seeing no other option he stepped out into the open and faced the Soul Reaper standing in front of him.

----

"It's been a long ass time Kurosaki," Grimmjow sneered at the orange haired Soul Reaper in front of him, Ichigo didn't move. He stood there with his giant zanpaku-to, Zangetsu, in front of him waiting for Grimmjow to make the first move. The two Technicolor haired men stared at each other for a few seconds before Grimmjow disappeared from sight and appeared two milliseconds later behind Ichigo. Ichigo moved his sword behind him and blocked the attack. Grimmjow jumped back and prepared to launch his next attack but Ichigo had already beaten him to the punch line.

"Bankai" Ichigo held his zanpaku-to out in front of him and let bands of reiatsu wrap around his arms and sword. Upon the words 'bankai' Ichigo's sword shrunk in size and his entire outfit changed. This time Ichigo charged at Grimmjow and was deflected.

Grimmjow took Ichigo by the sword and flung him over twenty feet in the air. As he skidded to a stop Grimmjow stood there mockingly.

"Ichigo!"

Rukia was still waiting behind the clock tower. Shuhei had gone back to the station against Toshiro's orders to get a Remmington and some of R&Ds bullets. When Grimmjow flung Ichigo across the air Rukia felt sympathy pains for Ichigo.

"Is that all you've got?" Grimmjow sneered making his way over to Ichigo. By now Ichigo had gotten up and was leaning on his sword for support but there was a fire in his eyes that a single blow couldn't extinguish.

"Getsuga Tensho," Ichigo bellowed and a bluish silver band of reiatsu swung out from his blade and caught Grimmjow in the chest. He snarled and went in on the attack again.

----

Toshiro didn't have to wait long for Petar to come out at him. The newly created arrancar came launching out of nowhere. Given his past (which Toshiro was unaware of) he should have been more careful in his attack mode but fighting against arrancars had made the former Russian sniper a bit cocky.

Toshiro kept his head calm and level and sensed out his opponent. He didn't seem to have very strong reiatsu so it was possible he didn't have to unleash his bankai. Judging by the clashes and surges around the area Renji and Ichigo were fighting at full power. Among the clashes there was a noticeable absence of Shuhei's spiritual pressure. Toshiro guessed that he had run back to the station to get more weapons.

"Who are you?" Toshiro asked. If he could draw out his opponent by talking he'd have a better shot. It was the one thing Renji and Ichigo weren't doing. Then again they had done battle against Ulquiorra and Grimmjow before.

"What does that matter," Petar said. "Once I kill you Lord Aizen is going to let me kill Ed Lane."

"Wait, Aizen has Ed?" Toshiro asked drawing his sword. Petar pulled a gun from his belt. Toshiro felt his SRU training kick in and knew that if he talked long enough he would get what he wanted from the subject.

"Yes, Lord Aizen has Ed Lane," Petar said pointing the gun at Toshiro. "After I kill you I can kill him if Lord Aizen has completed his plans."

"What are those plans?" Toshiro asked knowing he wasn't going to get an answer.

"Why would I tell you that?' Petar asked mockingly. Around them Renji and Ichigo's spiritual pressure increased at an alarming rate telling Toshiro they had just released their bankai. Toshiro didn't want to release his but the situation was calling for it.

-----

Shuhei had returned with a Remmington and he handed it to Rukia. She took it loaded it and took off. Shuhei hung back waiting to be of some assistance to either Renji or Ichigo but he knew their egos wouldn't allow it. He hung back in the clock tower wishing there was another arrancar for him to fight. Since there wasn't he simply waited for the battles to be over.

_This is our chance to see if this thing works_, Rukia thought to herself as she made her way up the city hall building. She had the Remmington strapped to her back and when she landed on the roof she had a clear view of all three battles. There was way too much movement and with no means of communication there was no way to tell the boys whether or not she had a solution.

Renji and Ichigo kept clashing and both of their bankai were released. Toshiro was still, he was using negotiation on his subject. Wise move on his part. Suddenly Renji came out of nowhere and landed on the roof next to Rukia. He had taken some beatings and was about ready to collapse.

"Renji," Rukia said taking her eyes away from the action. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," he panted. Rukia didn't buy it and she felt a surge in spiritual pressure as Shuhei went to take in Ulquiorra.

_Men_, she thought to herself just before Renji collapsed on the ground. Rukia looked up Shuhei was stalling just above her. As a sniper she knew he was stalling to give her a solution. Lining up the loaded rifle she took a single shot and the Vasto Lordes recoiled. The bullet wasn't enough to kill him but it was enough to drive him back.

All three arrancars heard the gunshot and saw Ulquiorra get hit. The shot didn't kill him but it was enough to make him fall back. He gave an order to retreat and the sky opened up to blackness and Grimmjow and Petar stopped their battles. They just left without a word and went back to Hueco Mundo. Toshiro looked utterly confused but Ichigo and Shuhei were pissed off. Rukia was looking somewhat smug and Renji was about ready to pass out.

"Oi," Ichigo said when they all landed on the rooftop. Rukia was using the kido she knew to heal some of Renji's battle wounds "That was almost completely pointless."

"Not quite," Toshiro said with grim satisfaction. He pulled out his blackberry and hit a few buttons. "I recorded all of Petar, the third arrancar's, little speech. Ed is in Hueco Mundo and Aizen plans to use his heavy reiatsu to destroy Toronto."

"Well there's a happy little ditty," Ichigo said watching Rukia heal Renji. "Shotty not telling Greg"

Renji: Elle, why is it always me that gets maimed in your fanfics?

Elle: Well in the _Battle,_ Jen had an order and took out the hollows; it's your own damn fault for not being capable of defeating them. And in _Hold Me _I hurt Ichigo.

Renji: Whatever


	8. Chapter 8: Pizza? Hell No Call In Backup

Chapter Eight

"Hello beautiful," Kon said to Donna as the blonde SRU officer of team three walked past. Spike and Sam hid behind the wall waiting and watched as Donna's expression changed faster than a set of traffic lights.

"Aren't you one of the kids Team one is training?" Donna asked taking a step backwards. Kon advanced on her and Sam and Spike laughed from their spots. They didn't know who they wanted to win this one but it was still highly amusing. Sam and Spike had persuaded Kon to hit on Donna, the officer who had taken Jules's place when she went on a leave of absence from being shot. Sam didn't get to close with Donna and Spike was slightly afraid of her. Needless to say it was one of them who had cooked up this idea.

Suddenly a in a blur of motion Kon had launched himself at Donna and the latter defended herself, pinning the orange haired teenager to the ground. Sam and Spike burst out laughing.

"What are you two doing?" Greg had come over hearing the ruckus. He watched in mild amusement as Donna tried to fight Kon off of her before he turned his attention back to his own subordinates.

"This spot has a 99.9 percent chance of being safe," Toshiro's gikongan was still hiding on Greg's back but he had gotten to ignore it by now. Sam and Spike recoiled under the sergeant's stern eyes.

"Hey Sarge," Spike said. "Shiro and the others return yet?"

"That's_ Captain _Hitsugaya to you Michael Scarlatti," Toshiro and the others had returned just in time to stop the chaos their gikongan were causing. Ichigo at once took off and returned to his body. Once back he apologized repeatedly to Donna for his behavior.

Donna cast him a wary eye before heading back to her team muttering something about 'off his meds' to Greg before finally departing.

"Sergeant Parker," Toshiro said in a very urgent manner. "Please call your team into the briefing room. I have more information about Ed."

Without further hesitation Greg called team one into the briefing room. The soul reapers had returned to their proper gigai and Ichigo was still apologizing repeatedly to Jules for Kon's behavior. Greg sat down in a chair to the side of the table letting Toshiro take the head. This was a mark of how serious the situation was. Greg never relinquished his throne, not even to Ed.

"Today we went to investigate an abnormal amount of spiritual pressure downtown," Toshiro began. Rukia had wheeled in a whiteboard and was marking it up with her usual drawings. "What we thought was just an on surge of hollows actually turned out to be three arrancars."

"What exactly are arrancars again?" Spike asked. Rukia drew a very crude picture of the three arrancars that they had faced earlier today.

"Arrancars are hollows that have removed their masks and acquired the powers of both Soul Reapers and Hollows," Renji explained quickly. "They come in three classes: Gillian foot soldiers that could be taken out easily by seated officers; Adjuchas the next level up are a bit more difficult but usually can be defeated by a lieutenant or higher without too much difficulty. The last class was the Vasto Lordes, the worst of the worst and they are stronger than a captain-class soul reaper."

"We faced three Vasto Lordes today," Toshiro said as Rukia pointed to her drawings. "The first two, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques and Ulquiorra Schiffer we had already encountered, Abarai and Kurosaki were able to drive them back while only sustaining minor injuries. The third one was the one that worried me the most. He called himself 'Petar' and was hell-bent on killing Ed Lane."

Whatever Toshiro was expecting from the SRU it wasn't this. Upon hearing the name they stiffened and became much more alert than they already were. Greg and Sam exchanged dark looks and Jules's expression hardened.

"He's dead," Sam said flatly. His tone made it apparent that the new arrancar had personal relations to the SRU and Toshiro was determined to get to the bottom of it.

"Care to elaborate on that statement Braddock?" the young captain asked.

"Petar's father was killed by Ed a year ago over in First York," Jules said. "He pressed charges and claimed it was an unlawful death but the case was dropped. Six months later he came back with a rifle in order to draw Ed into the open and I was caught in the line of fire. Sam took the shot and killed him."

"So this guy who is now working for Aizen has a vendetta against Ed and now that Aizen has Ed I suppose we can add two and two and make four, meaning that Petar is going to kill Ed," Greg concluded. Toshiro nodded grimly.

"But I'm afraid that that's not the worst of it," he said darkly. "Upon further interrogation I found out Aizen's true objective. Ed's heavy reiatsu, spiritual pressure concentration is enough to destroy Toronto. With a city this size and the amount of souls in it it's a perfect plot to put his master plan, to destroy the Soul Society into action."

"So what do we do," Greg asked now captivated by Rukia's drawings he waited a few moments before silence answered him.

"We have no choice," Toshiro said. "We need to invade Hueco Mundo and rescue Ed. Without Ed, Aizen can't blow up Toronto and that buys the Soul Society time. The only problem becomes what Head captain Yamamoto's orders are. If he says no, there is not much we can do."

"If he says no we'll go anyway," Rukia interjected. "It's our mission to make sure Ed is safe. No matter what happens we're not bailing now. We'll get Ed back I promise."

Greg looked at Toshiro. Team one was going to Hueco Mundo to bring Ed back to Toronto. Ichigo seemed detached and was typing something into his soul pager. He hit send and snapped it shut. Toshiro and Renji were looking at him.

"Are you about to tell us that you ordered pizza?" Toshiro said angrily. Ichigo shook his head. Renji reached forward and pulled the phone away, scrolling through all of Ichigo's past messages.

"He's texting his girlfriend!" he announced happily waving Ichigo's phone for all to see. Ichigo jumped forward and tried to take his phone back from Renji and soon the two were wrestling over it on the floor.

"Shut up," Ichigo snapped "At least I have one"

Wordy and Spike had jumped up in an attempt to pry the two men off each other. Toshiro did nothing to reprimand Ichigo or Renji but sat there looking thoughtful as if Renji's announcement had stirred something. Greg seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"Kurosaki's girlfriend is Captain Arisa Uchimani of the Ninth Division," Toshiro stated casting Shuhei a look. "And that being the case than perhaps asking her and her friends to come back us up wouldn't be such a bad idea."


	9. Chapter 9: Small Words and Visual Aids

Chapter Nine

**Elle:** _hey, a few of my OCs appear in this chapter: Risa, Jen, and Jake. Click the link on my profile to their images_ :)

Ed stirred. He had no idea where the hell he was or how he had gotten there. All he knew was that these white walls were unfamiliar and that he wasn't anywhere near the station.

There was the sound of a door slamming in the distance and footsteps coming over. Ed sat down on the cot in his cell hoping that whoever was coming would provide some sort of explanation.

As the footsteps came closer Ed saw it, the arrancar that had kidnapped him in the first place. Ed couldn't remember what it said its name was but he remembered the pasty white skin and the black eyeliner.

"Ed Lane," it said in its deep voice. "Lord Aizen wishes to see you"

The cell opened and the thing bound Ed's hands together with some sort of rope made of glowing light. They walked up the hall passing other vacant cells until they reached the end. That's when the thing placed his hand on the door and it opened.

They walked a little farther into a bigger hall meant to hold more people and there were more of these _things_ in it. All of them were wearing the same white robe, with hollow mask fragments on their faces and holes along their bodies. At the very top stood a throne with a man sitting upon it. He looked the most human out of all of them. His brown hair was slicked back and he wore black robes with a white coat over them.

"Good evening Mr. Lane," the man said pleasantly starting to walk down the steps to the ground. "My name is Sosuke Aizen"

Ed didn't respond. This was the man Toshiro and the others had been trying to protect him from.

"Perhaps you are wondering why I had you brought here," Aizen said. He was now face to face with Ed. Still Ed didn't answer. "You possess an enormous amount of Spirit Energy and I need a lot of Spirit Energy. Do you know why?"

Ed was staring to like this guy less and less with each and every word he spoke. His SRU training was the only thing keeping him silent. He would let Aizen finish his little speech and then Ed would try to talk his way out of this.

"Why?" Ed said bluntly.

"Because it takes a large amount of Spirit Energy to create an Oken, a dimensional key," Aizen explained simply. "Without an Oken I cannot hope to enter the Soul Society. But the process of obtaining an Oken is very difficult."

Aizen paused for a few seconds letting Ed take in this new information before continuing.

"In order to create an Oken I need to condense a large amount of souls into one tiny package. But to do that I need a large amount of Spiritual Energy, which you have and I need a lot of Souls like in Toronto."

Ed stared in disbelief; Aizen was going to use him to destroy Toronto!

"I'm glad we're on the same page," Aizen said silkily.

~*~*~*~*~

Ichigo walked around the station during his shift. There were no calls and things were rather quiet. He was expecting a few visitors but so far none of them had shown up. He walked a little further past the gym where Renji and Shuhei were lifting weights and Jules and Rukia were running on the treadmills. Greg and Toshiro were in the briefing room going over paperwork.

There really was nothing to do right now. Ichigo walked past Kira, the secretary's, desk and saw a few people wearing SRU uniforms except they had a Gotei-13 Division Seal on their sleeves instead of the Toronto Metropolitan Police Seal. Ichigo walked over. There were two girls and a boy.

The girl talking to Kira had long dark brown hair, which was pulled into a ponytail. Ichigo knew she was Jennifer Bletchley of Division Six. She also happened to be Jules's cousin.

The other girl was blonde with blue eyes and her hair was pulled back into a neat bun. She was leaning against the desk casually chatting with the boy. He had messy black hair and vivid green eyes. The girl was Arisa Uchimani, the captain of Division nine, and Ichigo's girlfriend and the boy was Jake Emmerson, captain of Division three.

"Risa," Ichigo said walking over to the three of them. "Jake, Jen"

"Kurosaki," Jen said brightly with a hint of an English accent. She picked up on of the giant duffle bags at her feet and shoved it in his chest. "Take this will you"

Ichigo complied having no choice. He led the three new soul reapers around the station until they reached the briefing room where Toshiro and Greg were still looking over files.

"Toshiro," Ichigo said leading the three inside. "Greg, this is Captain Arisa Uchimani of Division Nine, Captain Jake Emmerson of Division Three and Second Lieutenant Jennifer Bletchley of Division Six"

"How many times do I have to tell you," Toshiro said angrily with a vein throbbing in his temple. "That's _Captain_ Hitsugaya to you, Kurosaki!"

"I'm Sergeant Gregory Parker with Team One," Greg said standing up to shake hands with the three new soul reapers. "Thank you so much for helping us out."

"It's no problem," Jen said. "Without Renji the Division's not backlogged three weeks and I could actually come on paid leave. Byakuya talked to Head-captain Yamamoto."

"Oh," Greg said slightly taken aback.

"Don't mind her," Jake said. "There was a Tim Horton's on the way to the station and she had a Double-Double."

The three new soul reapers sat down at the briefing table and waited as the rest of the teams filed in. The SRU looked slightly confused at the three new people but the soul reapers muttered different words of greetings.

"Ok, team one," Greg said addressing his team. "This here is Arisa Uchimani, Jennifer Bletchley and Jake Emmerson. They're soul reapers and they've come to help us rescue Ed."

"I'm Sam, Sam Braddock," Sam said.

"Jules Callaghan," said Jules

"Mike Scarlatti," said Spike. "But call me Spike"

"Lou Young," said Lou

"Kevin Wordsworth," said Wordy. "But everyone calls me Wordy"

"You guys all know what Aizen's planning right?" Risa asked. Everyone nodded. "How he wants to use Ed Lane's highly concentrated Reiatsu in order to condense the city of Toronto into an Oken?"

"Small words and visual aids Reese," Jen said holding her thumb and forefinger about a millimeter apart to symbol 'small'. At this Rukia practically jumped out of her seat, sketchbook in hand and stood next to Risa.

"This is Ed," Risa said pointing to Rukia's bunny version of Ed. If it weren't for the word 'Ed' and the arrow nobody could tell it was Ed.

"Ed contains a lot of Spirit Energy" the next drawing showed the Ed bunny with many red ribbons around him.

"Aizen wants to use Ed's Spirit Energy," this drawing was of the Aizen bunny and the Ed bunny. The Aizen bunny was chasing the Ed bunny.

"To condense Toronto," the drawing after that was of a city with arrows pointing to it.

"On order to make an Oken, which will be a portal to the dimension of the Soul Society's Royal Family," this was a drawing of a key with a crown on it.

"And we all die," Jake said bluntly.

"We're prepared to fight," Renji said brashly. "We're all prepared to got to Hueco Mundo and kick some ass"

"I've got explosives," Spike said smirking.

"We've got special Arrancar killing bullets," Sam said smiling lazily.

"Then we go now," Risa said firmly. "You've all been trained appropriately; you know what's at stake. There's no point in wasting anymore time. Get ready and meet back here in ten minutes."

"What about the head captain's orders?" Greg asked seriously. Risa smirked at him.

"That's not a problem sergeant," she said gathering up her papers. "The head captain is a million years old and probably remembers dinosaurs. The rest of us treat his orders as a yellow road sign. Byakuya Kuchiki gave us an ok, that's all we need"


	10. Chapter 10: We're Off To Attack Aizen

Chapter Ten

Fifteen minutes later the whole unit was sitting in the briefing room with Risa, Jake and Toshiro, the three Gotei-13 Division Captains standing up. All the power and control of the mission had shifted to them and every order they issued. When Spike, the last man in sat down Jen and Renji who had been standing sentry at the door closed them and Jen preformed a kido barrier sealing the door shut.

Jake had measured the room, it was just big enough to open the portal to Hueco Mundo and slip through. Risa, who was proficient with kido, would ultimately be the one who opened the portal.

The atmosphere was tense, letters and statements had been forged and sent to the right people, the weapons; the soul reapers' zanpaku-to, and the SRU's arsenal had been prepared to the fullest extent. With the minutes ticking down Risa turned to the team.

"I'm going to open the portal called the Garganta. Inside it is no solid ground, only floating reishi particles, you need to forge your own path and follow the darkness."

"How do we forge a path out of reishi," Spike asked. That wasn't in the job description.

"Follow in someone's slipstream," Jen said impatiently.

"In my right hand," Risa had started the kido to open the portal. "The stone that connects the worlds, in my left hand the blade that binds existence. The black-haired shepherd; the chair of the noose; I strike the ibis when the clouds gather!"

A thin black line shot across the room from one end to the other. When it settled it began to widen and when it finished it opened splitting the very air apart and opening a portal into another dimension.

Toshiro and Jake, along with Greg and Wordy were the first ones in followed by Shuhei, Renji, Jules, and Sam. Ichigo and Rukia along with Lou and Spike were next. Lastly after releasing the kido barrier Risa and Jen entered the Garganta on the way to Hueco Mundo.

It was very dark inside the Garganta with the only light coming from the reishi bands the more advanced soul reapers were using to keep themselves from falling into the abyss. The SRU team was following close behind a soul reaper in order to keep in their slipstream since they weren't very good at it.

There was a crack. Ichigo, swearing loudly tried to pull his foot out of the reishi band since his weak one had cracked. He pulled his foot out of the hole and kept running but by that time Risa and Jen with their strong reishi platform had already caught up.

The team ran a little bit further into the darkness and then….CRASH!

Toshiro and Jake who were up front crashed into solid darkness and emerged into an underground passageway. They stepped out of the way so that the rest of the team could get in.

"This is the same place we came to when we went to save Orihime," Ichigo said loudly.

"Keep your voice down," Rukia hissed. "Do you want something to hear us?"

"Something might tell us where Ed is," Ichigo reasoned.

"Yeah and when that something is an Espada going to kill you you're on your own," Risa hissed back. Somehow she had snuck up front with Greg and the other captains and they were headed in the opposite way that Ichigo had gone when he had saved Orihime Inoue with Chad and Uryu.

The SRU moved in droves of twos and kept close to the walls, each of them had their guns out. Each Soul Reaper moved with their hand on their zanpaku-to with the exceptions being Risa, who had a gun and Jen who wasn't holding anything.

Sam walked with his back against the wall but he felt one of the packs brush against something and felt it depress. Figuring it was nothing they kept going…until the floor started to disappear on them.

"RUN!" Ichigo yelled as the floor started to disintegrate underneath them. The entire team broke out into a sprint sinking deeper and deeper as the floor dissolved.

"Turn left," Jen screamed ducking into a branching hallway. The team followed her order and they ended up in a hallway that was still intact. There was a grumbling and groaning sound in the distance.

"Something's heard us," Renji said peering out into the blackness. A large tentacle came flying out of nowhere. Without much warning Jake screamed "get down" and the entire team slammed to the ground to avoid being hit by the slimly appendage.

"What the hell was that?" Spike asked as it retracted.

"One of the guards," Ichigo said. He seemed to be the Hueco Mundo expert. "If we cut right at the next intersection it'll bring us to a dome-like thing where we can fight if we need to."

"I'd prefer we not fight," Toshiro said. "But if that's what it comes to, is there a way out from there?"

"That is the way out," Ichigo said. Risa, Toshiro and Greg looked at each other.

"Let's go," Risa said stepping forward. "Kurosaki we'll follow you."

Ichigo led the way through the maze of hallways until like he said they reached the dome; the problem was something was waiting for them.

"That's an arrancar," Rukia said. She turned to one of the captains for instructions like all the soul reapers but it was Jen who took immediate action.

"I'll take this one and catch up," she said reaching into her Kevlar vest and pulling out a black and silver fan. Risa caught her eye.

"Be careful," the blonde said nodding. "Don't do anything stupid"

"Would I?" Jen said spreading open her fan so that it obscured half of her face. Risa cocked an eyebrow. Jen was known to be one of the Soul Society's biggest risk takers but right now the team had no choice but to leave the crazy one to deal with the arrancar.

"Bletchley," Renji said coming forward. "I'm not letting you deal with thing alone, I'm staying with you."

Jen rolled her eyes but nevertheless she launched her fan like a Frisbee (think Yumi from _Code Lyoko_). It flew around the arrancar and sliced it across the back and came flying back to its owner.

"Let's go," Risa said ushering the team through the narrow channel between Jen's fight and the wall. "Before she pisses it off more"

They had barely gone three feet when another arrancar stepped into their path. Jen was fighting the one with the tentacles that had attacked them earlier. This one was more bird like.

"These are arrancars?" Greg muttered. "They look more like hollows."

"I'll deal with this one," Risa hissed. "You guys go on ahead."

Suddenly Rukia jumped up and slammed Spike into the ground. The entire team looked at her in shock but understood why as a black blur came hurtling out of nowhere. The blur was Jen's fan and it soared around the arrancar and back to her, and she caught it in her right hand.

"Go," Risa yelled shoving Shuhei in the right direction. "Follow Kurosaki, he has a clue what he's doing this time!"

Risa drew a thin sword from her belt as the other arrancar rounded on her. Jen was bouncing off the walls and firing her fan at her opponent. She seemed to be confusing to more than attacking it. The rest of the team was following Ichigo and Toshiro up top leaving Risa and Jen to deal with the arrancars.

"ROAR ZABIMARU!" Risa looked over her shoulder just as a giant segmented zanpaku-to came tearing behind her. She leapt to the right just as Renji took out the arrancar.

"That was too easy," Renji said cockily resting his sword over his shoulder. Risa shot him a glance and ran toward the exit where the last bit of Spike's leg was disappearing. Renji grabbed Jen and they started running.

"What the hell was that for?!" Jen screamed as Renji dragged her away. They were running up a steep narrow staircase. Risa could see Spike just ahead of them.

"What the hell is going on?!" Greg said as the walls started to shake. Toshiro stopped dead in the middle of the hallway.

"Run faster," Ichigo screamed darting past Greg and Toshiro. They took his words true to heart and ran faster up the stairs until they came to a landing. The tunnel they had just emerged out of had imploded with sand.

"Where are we?" Jules asked brushing some stray sand off of her SRU uniform. "Are we still in Hueco Mundo?"

"That's Las Noches," Rukia said pointing to a giant fortress in the middle of the desert. "That's were Aizen is keeping Ed prisoner"

"It's pretty far away," Wordy said cupping his hand over his eyes to get a better look at it. Behind them, the sand wall that had imploded earlier shot forward, like a geyser.

"Take cover," Toshiro ordered. They others obeyed, diving to the ground and covering their heads as sand spewed everywhere. Risa, Renji and Jen appeared out of the sand geyser, wiping sand off their faces.

"Where the hell did you three come from?" Ichigo asked jumping up and pointing at the three who had just emerged.

"That basement you led us into fucking imploded when we defeated the arrancars," Renji snarled at Ichigo, grabbing him by the front end of his robes. "We only just escaped!"

"Boys, boys, boys," Greg said stepping forward and prying the feuding Technicolor haired soul reapers apart. "Calm down, regroup and let's try and come up with a way to get to Las Noches."

Spike turned to Rukia. "You're brother wouldn't have been so kind as to come up with a suburban designed for the terrain of the desert would he?"

"No," Rukia said shaking her head. She cast a side look at Sam. "And we don't have a tank either."

"We're gonna have to make a run for it," Jake said speaking for the first time since they had arrived in Hueco Mundo. Greg and Toshiro looked at each other.

"Let's run then,"


	11. Chapter 11: Slight Complications

Chapter Eleven

Ulquiorra and Grimmjow went down to the arrancar's conference room. Aizen had called a meeting. They sat down in the respective seats for four and six and waited for Aizen, flanked by his upper echelons Kaname Tosen and Gin Ichimaru to appear.

"Hello my fellow arrancars," Aizen said cheerfully as he sat down at the head of the table. "It seems we have been invaded, but first let's have some tea shall we?"

He snapped his fingers and three lowered ranked arrancars started serving tea to the Espadas. Aizen drank his watching the others out of the corners of his eyes. Grimmjow seemed rather jumpy.

"Kaname," Aizen said. "Please show them the footage we received from the surveillance feeds."

"Yes sir," Kaname said walking over to a projector. He pushed a few buttons and the images of the soul reapers and the SRU running towards Las Noches appeared on the screen.

"You said we were under attack, Lord Aizen," said one of the arrancars. "This doesn't seem like much of an attack. They are merely some vermin that slipped out of the woodwork."

"I wouldn't underestimate them," Aizen said calmly sipping his tea. "Those are captain class soul reapers and Canada's elite group of SWAT officers. I believe they're here to try and rescue our guest, Mr. Lane."

"Why have you called us to order," asked a female arrancar angrily. "He will be long dead before they even get here. They collapsed the seventeenth underground tunnel. It's two hundred kilometers from Las Noches."

Grimmjow jumped out of his seat and started walking toward the door. He wanted to kill the intruders, mainly Ichigo, no matter what Aizen said.

"Grimmjow," Aizen said with a little bit more force. "Please sit down."

"Let me kill them all, Lord Aizen," Grimmjow snarled.

"No," Aizen said simply. He snapped his fingers and Grimmjow was crushed under the weight of Aizen's enormous reiatsu. "Let them come to us. We'll throw them a little welcoming party."

~*~*~*~*

"Is this the part where Jeremy materializes the overboard, overwing and overbike for our use?" Spike asked as they group kept running toward Las Noches. So far they had only covered five kilometers. Spike was in the middle of the pack with Jules, Wordy, Lou Shuhei and Renji. Sam, Greg, Toshiro, Ichigo and Risa were up top and Jen, Rukia and Jake took up the rear

"What are you talking about Spike?" Sam asked over his shoulder. "Who the hell is Jeremy?"

"Have any of you ever seen the show Code Lyoko? There's a part in the desert," Spike said. "This kinda reminds me of it except that it's all white and not reddish-brown. Come to think of it, Jen's attack on that last enemy was a lot like Yumi's from the show."

"Please pardon Spike," Wordy said to the soul reapers. "He still watches cartoons."

"Code Lyoko was a good show," Spike argued. "My favorite character was Odd. He could shoot laser arrows from his claws."

"Oh my god," Jen said excitedly. "Odd was my favorite character too! But Yumi's fight style was so much cooler."

"Seriously," Jake panted as they ran a little further. "Are we there yet? We've run for like what seven kilometers?"

He sat down on a tree trunk that had fallen over. The rest of the team dropped their gear to sit with him. Only Greg and Toshiro remained standing. Toshiro crossed his arms and cast looks at the remaining Soul Reapers.

"Are you guys serious?" Toshiro barked at them. "We're on a mission! We can't afford to be resting at a time like this!"

"Unless you brought a suburban with you—" Ichigo started but Rukia slapped him because she knew his little outburst would land them in serious trouble with the white-haired captain.

"It's going to take us a while to get to Las Noches," Rukia tried to reason. "We rode on a giant worm last time and it still took about forty-five minutes to get there"

"Could we please stop calling it Las Noches," Jake asked. He was lying on the sand with his arm over his eyes. "It reminds me of nachos and now I really want them"

"Sp we never exactly solved our problem of getting from here to Las Nachos," Rukia said. "Since we can't exactly make a suburban appear out of thin air—"

"—and there's no nerdy boarding school kid on a supercomputer," Jen added.

"We're still like a million kilometers away," Renji said squinting in the direction of Las Noches. "Too bad Ichigo's little masochist friend Nell isn't here to give us a ride."

"You just had to say it didn't you?" Ichigo asked as the ground began to rumble. Upon feeling the vibrations the entire SRU team jumped up weapons drawn as a giant worm surrounded by three arrancars came running into view.

"What the hell is it?" Jules asked trying to get a better look at it.

"ICHHHHIIIIIIIIIGOOOO" a blur of motion came flying out of nowhere and launched itself at Ichigo. He was knocked to the ground by the force and whatever had attacked him became visible. It was a small girl with turquoise hair and half a mask over her bangs.

"Ow Nell, get off me," Ichigo muttered as the girl continued to smother the orange haired soul reaper. Risa cocked an eyebrow.

"Why does this look so wrong on so many different levels?" Renji asked smugly resting his arm on Risa's shoulder as he watched Ichigo try and fight the little girl off him. Meanwhile the SRU looked about ready to pass out.

"Where have you been Ichi-kun," Nell, the girl, said crossing her arms. Ichigo blinked twice trying to register what had just happened. "Have you been hanging around that blonde tramp again?"

"Excuse me?" Risa asked pushing Renji out of the way to glare at the little girl. "I can understand it when Yachiru calls me Blondie but—"

"Easy there taichou," Shuhei said stepping in front of Risa before she attacked the little girl that was straddling her boyfriend.

"Nell," Ichigo said pushing the little girl off of him and standing up. "It's not nice to call other people names."

"But look at her Ichi-kun," Nell said pointing to Risa, who was clad in SWAT gear. "Who dresses like that?"

"Oh that's it," Risa said going to launch forward but Shuhei wrapped his arms firmly around her waist and she immobilized like a sedan in the snow.

"Listen Nell," Ichigo said quickly trying to keep the two girls from killing each other. "Would it be possible for us to take a ride on Bawa-Bawa to Las Noches again?"

"Do you have to save another tramp Ichi-kun?" Nell said nuzzling her head into his chest. Renji stepped forward to help Shuhei keep Risa in place.

"We have to save a friend of Mr. Parker's," Ichigo said motioning toward Greg who was staring at the entire scene completely dumbfounded.

"Ok then," Nell said happily throwing her arms around Ichigo's neck as she dragged him up onto the giant worm arrancar named Bawa-Bawa. Risa crossed her arms and stayed rooted on the spot as the rest of the team clambered onto Bawabawa's back with Nell and the other two arrancars.

"Are you coming Risa?" Sam asked since he was the last one to climb up.

"I will walk the remaining kilometers to Las Noches," Risa said defiantly crossing her arms.

"See Nell," Renji said condescendingly. "Look what you did; you offended Risa now she won't come with us."

Nell's eyes suddenly began to well up and without warning she burst into tears, grabbing Ichigo's shirt and sobbing into it. Ichigo sighed trying to figure out what he was going to when Sam leapt off of Bawa-Bawa lifted Risa into a fireman's carry and dragged her onto the giant worm.

"Don't worry," Rukia said to Risa as Bawa-Bawa started moving forward with the speed of a bullet train. "She gave me a million death glares and called me every name in the book last time we came here."

Nell stuck her tongue out at Risa behind Ichigo's back, Risa narrowed her eyes dangerously.


	12. Chapter 12: Sound The Alarms We're Here

Chapter twelve

Elle: I tried to make this like an episode of _Bleach_ where it shows the same event from three different perspectives. If it's jumpy I'm sorry, but Spike gets some love though! Yay Spike!

Spike: whoo!

Ed looked up at the ceiling of cell trying to figure out a way out of here. Even as one of Canada's elite cops who had been trained in this sort of thing he had no idea how he was going to break out of this heavily guarded prison.

Sighing Ed got off the bed to walk over to window. Outside the bars was nothing but sand, sand and more sand as far as the eye could see with a few trees scattered in to spice things up. This time there was something strange in the distance. What was it?

"I think I'm going to be sick," Lou muttered leaning over the side of Bawa-Bawa. He did indeed look paler than usual and Spike had a faint green twinge to his complexion.

Greg was sitting near the head watching as the landscape flew past him with an expression that became more and more determined as they got closer and closer.

"Fifty kilometers and closing," Jen said checking blackberry. "Give it fifteen minutes start getting ready."

"I want to take a team on the roof," Risa said plugging her headset into place.

"I'm scanning the area to try and zero in on Ed's location," Jake said. He had his laptop open on the back of the worm. "I got it, three hundred meters down, six hundred left"

"Five minutes," Jen said. Spike was pulling flash bangs out of his pack and handing them to each person. Sam was loading his rifle with the special bullets that Rukia had given him.

"This is what we're gonna do," Toshiro said consulting Jake's laptop. "We need to shift over six hundred meters. I'm thinking EFE to create a diversion while six ninjas go down that corridor where Ed is. Can we do that?"

"Two minutes," Jen said.

Ed stared at the thing that was coming closer and closer to Las Noches. It looked like a giant worm with people on top of it. There was something familiar about those people though, Ed could sense it.

He remembered that Toshiro and the others could sense each other's spirit energy by concentrating hard on it. Ed closed his eyes and focused his energy in trying to sense who was coming.

Suddenly the mash of reiatsu hit him like a bullet. In the confusing tangle he could feel all five of the soul reapers, Ichigo, Toshiro, Renji Shuhei and Rukia, and all six of his teammates Greg, Wordy, Spike, Jules, Lou and Sam plus a few new ones that he didn't know.

Amidst all the panic Ed felt the first true ray of hope as the entire palace shook like an earthquake had hit it and a million and one alarms started blaring.

"Sound the alarms!" a sentry was screaming from the computer room. Something had just slammed into the side of Las Noches, something big by the sound of it.

The sentry began pushing buttons sounding all the alarms as foot soldiers passed his getting to their defense positions.

"Brace for impact," Jen said with only a few meters of space between them and the giant wall. Spike was standing next to her, a live grenade in his hand. He was going to lob it at the wall and the force would create the EFE they needed.

Spike threw the grenade to the wall and it made impact. There was a huge explosion sending chunks of cement everywhere.

Sam, Jen, Shuhei, Jules and Rukia grabbed their rifles and leapt off the arrancar and ran into the smoke to set up their vantage points. Risa, Renji, Ichigo, Wordy and Spike took off to pull another EFE on the roof just over where Jake said Ed was. Greg, Lou Toshiro and Jake were the last ones in.

Spike was with Risa's team and they passed the main control room in the midst of the chaos. There was an alarm blaring loudly as the arrancar sentries drew their weapons. Ichigo and Renji shot them all looking impressed with their work. Meanwhile with the guards down Spike and Risa had seated themselves in the control seats and began pushing buttons

The alarms were silenced and Spike had unlocked all the doors. With looks of satisfaction they continued on their way

"We should have seen something by now," Ichigo muttered as his team crept along the wall guns out ready at a second's notice. Risa was at the top of the line the only light coming from the light attached to her gun. Other than that the corridor was emerged in total darkness.

"What was that?" Wordy said suddenly. "I thought I heard something moving behind us"

He was right, there were footsteps and a lone figure appeared in front of Risa.

"You will not get any further than this," the arrancar said drawing a zanpaku-to from his belt. Every member of the squad had their gun pointed at the arrancar but only Risa and Renji had a clear shot because of the corridor's narrowness.

"What do we do," Renji hissed in Risa's ear.

"You guys go on ahead," Spike said. "I'll take care of him, you guys go find Ed."

"Are you crazy," Renji said. Spike responded by cocking his weapon back ready to fire.

"Go on ahead, I'll catch up with you," Spike said face determined. Risa and Renji looked at each other. Spike was determined to kill this thing and time was running out.

"You better catch up with us," Ichigo said as they four of them went ahead. Spike had a clean shot at the arrancar.

"You stupid human," the arrancar said. "Your human weapons will have no effect on me."

Spike pulled the trigger and the gun went off expelling one of Rukia's special bullets. It hit the arrancar in the shoulder and he went down cursing and screaming.

"How is that possible?" the arrancar screamed as he started bleeding. "You're a human! A stupid human cannot defeat me!"

"That's what you get when you kidnap my teammate!" Spike spat at the dying arrancar. "Tell Aizen not to fuck with the SRU"

"Sierra one in position," said Sam. He and Shuhei were positioned just above Ed's cell with the sniper rifle set up loaded with the special bullets. "What's you vantage?"

"Sierra two in position," said Jules. She and Rukia had the second rifle set up about fifty meters down. Altogether there were three snipers positioned in a triangular formation around the cell. It was a miracle that they were able to get into their positions without getting caught by the arrancar guards.

"Why the hell am I Sierra three?" Jen said angrily, minutely adjusting her scope to fit the lack of light. She didn't have a spotter like Sam and Jules because Risa usually spotted her.

"Is that really a matter of importance Bletchley?" Toshiro replied in the headsets. "Because if it is I can always have a chat with Captain Kuchiki…"

"That won't be necessary," Jen muttered back into the headsets.

"Alpha team what's your twenty?" Sam asked over the airwave.

"Just outside the Northeast entrance," said Greg. "We're waiting for Bravo team to radio in and then we execute Plan RE"

"Seriously," Jen muttered. "Why do we let Jake name things? RE? Really?"

"Shut up Bletchley," Jake muttered.

"Suck it Emmerson," Jen retorted

"We are on a mission," Toshiro said angrily. "Can you two behave for five seconds?"

"Bravo team what's your twenty?" Greg said trying to diffuse the heated argument that was inappropriately taking place between Jake and Jen.

"Just outside the southeast entrance," Wordy's voice joined the crew. "Spike went to take care of an arrancar just west of us. We haven't heard back yet."

"Should someone radio in Division four?" Rukia asked.

Spike jogged over to the southeast post with a look of grim smugness on his face. His squad gave him glances and he nodded.

"Spike's accounted for," Risa said. "What's the status?"

"EFE," Lou replied. "Both sides, Sam, Jules and Jen take out the guards and then we burst in."

"Copy that," everyone responded.

"Three"

Risa and her squad got into place just behind the door ready to break it open. Jen made one last adjustment to her scope making sure everything was perfectly lined up with the arrancar guard.

"Two"

Greg gripped the handle of the riot shield tightly he knew that if this plan worked out they would have Ed back and Aizen couldn't destroy Toronto. Sam moved his hand to the trigger on the rifle in less than a second…

"One"

Three rifles fired shots three guards fell and all hell broke loose

Ed paced his cell; the alarms had been silenced a few minutes ago. It was probably a false alarm he figured but that couldn't explain why he felt his team's reiatsu around him. He could feel their exact locations. Something big was happening. This wasn't a false alarm, this was the real thing. His team was here and they were going to get him out of here!

There were three sentries standing guard outside his cell not moving, almost like statues. Ed wondered why they hadn't been fazed when the alarm started blaring but a crack like a gunshot jarred his thoughts. The guards fell to the ground like they had been shot by highly trained snipers. Ed looked up and in the flash of one shot saw the face of Jules and Rukia briefly illuminated by the gunfire.

The room shook as the doors on either side of the corridor burst open and a squad of SWAT gear clad people came pouring in screaming things like. "Police; don't move" or "Hands were I can see them!"

"ED! ED! ED WHERE ARE YOU!" someone was screaming. Ed knew that voice. It was Greg! Amidst all the smoke two figures emerged and Ed couldn't be happier to see them. Greg and Toshiro came running over and Ed and Greg embraced like long lost brothers.

The smoke was starting to clear revealing a scene much unlike any other. The soul reapers were pointing guns at six dead arrancars. Meanwhile every member of the SRU came running over and hugging Ed. They were all so happy to see him alive and Toronto not destroyed.

"Well, well, well," said a voice. "What a happy little reunion."

Grimmjow, Ulquiorra and Petar were standing in the doorway.


	13. Chapter 13: Git Er Done

Jen was still at her sierra post waiting for further orders but none came. She watched the entire scene unfold but amongst the triumph and the success she felt like something was off.

Her suspicions were confirmed when three Espada came striding into view.

"Guys," she said over the airwave but they were all to busy with Ed to pay attention. On top of that she couldn't take a proper shot because Renji was standing right in the line of fire.

Thankfully (or not) Grimmjow had spoken alerting the team of their presence. Jen readjusted the scope on her rifle now that three walls had collapsed bringing more light into the darkened corridor.

"Renji," Jen snarled into her headset. "If you move your fat ass I can take a shot at Grimmjow"

But Ichigo had already broken formation and now he and Grimmjow were running away to take their battle elsewhere. Jen drummed her fingers against the tripod waiting for someone to do something but aside from Grimmjow and Ichigo who leapt into battle everyone was having a stare down.

"What garbage," Ulquiorra said shaking his head. "You really thought you had a chance at rescuing your friend?"

Shuhei's hand went for his zanpaku-to but Risa motioned for him to hold. Since she was his captain he obeyed.

"What are we going to do?" Renji hissed

"Keep the captain class here," Toshiro answered. "Anyone below lieutenant is now entrusted with getting Ed and the rest of the SRU out of here."

"Does that mean me?" Jen asked in the headsets.

"Yes that means you," Toshiro said exasperated.

"Wait a minute," Risa said. "Renji's Division Six acting captain, which makes Bletchley acting lieutenant, we need a sniper"

"Fine," Toshiro grumbled. "You know what to do."

"Ed you're coming with us on the Bawa-Bawa express," Spike said happily pulling Ed into a fireman's carry and running out the southeast port. Petar made to run after him but Renji and Shuhei stepped in his way.

Ulquiorra and Toshiro kept staring at each other. The short captain pulled his zanpaku-to out of his holster and held it out in front of him. Ulquiorra raised his hand and pointed his finger at Toshiro.

"Cero"

"Sit upon the frozen heavens Hyorinmaru!"

A jet of red light shot out of Ulquiorra's finger as a giant ice dragon engulfed Toshiro. The cero hit Toshiro's bankai causing fragments of shattered ice to scatter everywhere like broken glass.

Without warning Grimmjow and Ichigo broke through a solid wall sending chunks of rock flying everywhere. Out of the corner of her eye Risa saw Ichigo prepare to fire a Getsuga Tensho with Sam in the line of fire. As the blue light left the blade of Ichigo's sword Risa slammed into Sam as he was getting out of the hall.

Grimmjow deflected the attack with ease and prepared to fire a cero at Ichigo when

"I wouldn't if I were you," Renji was pointing the glock straight at Grimmjow's forehead Grimmjow deflected the attack with ease and prepared to fire a cero at Ichigo when

"I wouldn't if I were you," Renji was pointing the glock straight at Grimmjow's forehead. He cocked it back ready to fire and there was a gunshot. Grimmjow fell facedown into a pool of blood. Ichigo and Renji looked around to see who had cast the final shot and saw the reflection of a barrel up where Jen was supposed to be.

"His arrogance has cost him," Ulquiorra said simply turning his attention back to Toshiro.

Rukia ran up the corridor trying to catch up with the rest of the SRU, and Bawa-Bawa. She could see the giant worm just ahead and was barely able to make out the figures on top of it. She kicked off the ground hard and closed the distance with a shunpo.

Wordy looked back over and saw the young soul reaper trying to catch up with them. He got on his hands and knees and started crawling down the giant worm. Rukia continued with the shunpo. Wordy held out his hand and pulled Rukia up onto the giant worm.

"That's one down," Shuhei told Risa as the two of them pressed themselves against the wall as Toshiro and Ulquiorra squared off. "Two more to go"

"This isn't going to be easy," Risa said. "One cero almost killed Snowball."

"What are we hiding for?" Ichigo said creeping up the hallway where Risa and Shuhei were hiding. Renji and Jen were behind him. Jen had her Remmington 700 slung over her shoulder.

Around them the walls shook as Ulquiorra and Toshiro expanded their reiatsu preparing for battle.

"I can take the shot from here," Jen said pulling a glock out of her belt. "One shot and we get out of here."

"Hold fire," Renji and Risa said at the same time. Jen shot them both a look.

"We need to get Toshiro out of there," Sam said from behind them all. The squad of soul reapers turned to see the SRU sniper behind him. Renji opened his mouth to say something but Ichigo beat him to it.

"Where the hell did you come from?"

"I'm thinking," Jen said with a pair of binoculars pressed against her eyes. "I shoot Ulquiorra and Berryhead grabs Snowball then Biscuits can knock down the central column after we get out, internally collapsing the structure."

"That's insane," Sam said voicing the opinion of the rest of the team.

"Yes," Jen said darkly. "But that's exactly why it's going to work."

"She is Byakuya's subordinate," Renji said. Sam looked at Jen and shook his head. He had very little faith that her plan was going to work

Ed held onto the back of Bawa-Bawa as he tore through the bareness of Hueco Mundo. His team was sitting around him, looking slightly green but nevertheless relieved that they finally had Ed back. Also riding on the back of Bawa-Bawa was Rukia and another Soul Reaper with black hair whom Ed didn't recognize.

As they tore away from Las Noches the entire palace began to crumble like someone had set off a bomb in the interior structure.

"What the hell was that!" Ed exclaimed. He looked around taking a quick headcount. Sam was missing as was half the soul reaper team.

Jen pointed her loaded glock at the Espada and waited for the final signal. Ichigo and Renji were hiding as were Risa and Sam.

Risa pulled a flash-bang out from her Kevlar vest and threw it into the hall. Jen fired the glock, Ichigo grabbed Toshiro and Renji let off the final explosive left in the inventory. They ran out of Las Noches before the entire thing collapsed around them.

Ed looked back at the palace that had been his prison as it collapsed into a heap.

"Status updates," Greg was barking into the headsets over the airwave.

"No harm," said Jen's voice accounting for the entire team that was running out of the collapsing building.

"I'm good," Risa said. She was bringing up the rear of the group.

"I can't see you guys," Jules said. She was sitting on top of Bawa-Bawa with a pair of binoculars pressed against her eyes. Suddenly Renji appeared over them by means of a giant leap and landed on top of the worm.

Jen joined him shortly and was followed by Toshiro, Ichigo and Risa bringing up the rear. At a long last the entire team was reunited and Ed was back safely with them.

"Everybody," Jen said standing up on top of the moving worm. "Do me a favor: stop getting kidnapped by the arrancars and making us come get yo—"

"IIIIIICCCHHHHIIIIGGGGOOO!" Jen was cut off as a blur of green motion came tearing down the length of Bawa-Bawa and hurled itself at Ichigo.

"You could have killed yourself Ichi-kun," Nell said angrily, once again swinging off Ichigo's neck. Risa turned her attention away. Ed meanwhile was watching the entire scene unfold with a mild amusement. He was still in shock that he was finally out of that place but the sight was pretty funny.

Ed turned his attention to the different members of the team who were discussing different tactics and other things as the giant worm sped away from Las Noches.

"I can't leave you to do anything can I!" Jen was yelling at Renji. "I leave you alone for five minutes and you fail so epically it makes it makes the Titanic seem insignificant!"

"It's good to have you back Eddy," Greg had come over to sit next to Ed. He clapped him on the shoulder and Ed smiled weakly.


End file.
